Science Has Found Why Freddie Mercury Was Such an Incredible Singer

Just listen to Freddie Mercury's isolated vocals from Queen's "We Are the Champions". That range, the theatrics, that yell— it's all so powerful and somehow still soft and beautiful, and he sustains that damn note long after anyone else would have collapsed with exhaustion. He's one of the greatest rock singers ever. Ever. Now, those shivers down your spine upon hearing Mercury sing aren't the only proof of his immense talent.

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A team of Austrian, Czech, and Swedish researchers studied Mercury's singing and speaking voice, along with a professional singer to recreate his vocals. They couldn't confirm the belief that his range spanned four octaves, but they did find a number of interesting insights into his vocals. Though he was widely known as a tenor, the researchers show that he was likely a baritone. This comes from an analysis of six interviews that revealed a a median speaking fundamental frequency of 117.3 Hz.

After analyzing a singer imitating Mercury's vocal performances, researchers also found that he used subharmonics, a style "seen in a more extreme way in Tuvan throat singing where not only the vocal folds vibrate, but also a pair of tissue structures called ventricular folds, which are not normally used for speaking or classical singing," the study noted. Mercury also sang with an irregular vibrato. A normal vibrato lands between 5.4 Hz and 6.9 Hz, while Mercury's was at 7.04 Hz. Comparing it to legendary opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, researchers said that Mercury was vibrating something in his throat that Pavarotti wasn't even using.